Dogfather Hot Dogs — Restaurant in Bartlett

Let me start with: Under new ownership. Any reviews prior to any starting this week, starting February 12th 2024, are for the old owners and establishment. Previous owners had great food and were good people, but there should be something showing it's under new owners. So with that said, let's begin.

Love the new look of the place, new tables and color scheme but still keeps the feel of the old Dogfather in the new. Clean, great fast service.

The food that I've had so far is quite tasty. I've stopped by a couple times already and have tried a few things. I know the cooks are still working on getting everything down so there has been a hiccup or two, but still very tasty food overall. And that is the only reason I put 4 stars for the food, once that's dialed in and the hiccups are gone this is easily 5 star. Fries were crispy on the outside, perfect on the inside, Dogfather Fries live again!

The Pizza Totchos (think nachos or loaded fries with tater tots), great use of cheese and marinara, I like the use of the sliced cheese, but might be easier to separate the tots if shredded, pepperoni was large and tasty, but could use to be smaller/thinner more of a bite size to it with a bite.

The Cheesy Beef. Very tasty, definitely reminded me of the old recipe, though I remember there being a bit more of a bite to it. The garlic bread is definitely nice, but could use to be a little stronger.

The Chicken Parm sandwich (picture included). Love the breading on this as well as the size. No negatives here, I liked it with the thigh meat, reminded me a little of a pork tenderloin almost, can't wait to get that breading on a chicken breast though.

The Pizza Pizza Pizza Burger. I got this by accident, I wanted just a pizza burger but got rung up for this one instead. Basically it's a pizza burger but instead of buns it's two pizza puffs as the bread. I was going to get this eventually so "happy mistake". Firstly, man, that burger is tasty. I look forward to trying their other burger offerings. This one I took home, I have about a 30 minute drive home from there. It doesn't travel that long too well as the burger juices kind of soak into the bottom puff and ruin any structural integrity (but that puff on it's own was AMAZING with the burger juices soaked in). Overall though, very yummy.

I will definitely be adding to this/changing it as I try more things on the menu. So far so good, I will definitely be back. I can't wait for the mac and cheese part of the menu to be active. I'll add more photos as well, I was so excited and looking forward to the food I forgot to take photos of most of it.

EDIT I have now tried the Texas Chic grilled cheese, as well as the grilled chicken sandwich. I've added a picture of the grilled cheese. The chicken sandwich was good, good ingredients and overall tasty.

The Texas Chic grilled cheese. Good crunch to the bread though a little darker toasting of the bread would just remind me of all the grilled cheese's I've had over the years. The BBQ sauce and onions and chicken and bacon were perfect. Lots of cheese inside. While I've had $8 grilled cheese's and more expensive grilled cheeses, this one is absolutely worth it. Very good size and lots of fillings and flavor. Definitely a winner, and I look forward to trying out other...

The daily special of chicken pita was very good. The french fries are not so much using Five Guys fries as a standard; they are just your basic frozen wavy-cut fries and are okay while hot, which is only for a couple of minutes.

The condiments available are basic plastic packages of yellow mustard and ketchup, and paper single-use salt and pepper. There is no hot sauce. I brought a little cup of sriracha with me and got them to give me some mayo and mixed up my own pepper-mayo sauce, which really kicked the chicken pita into gear -- yummy!

Fountain drinks are self-serve Dr. Pepper/7-Up products, plus pink lemonade.

I tried one of the "Chicago-style" hot dogs that are on sale for $.99 every day between 2 and 4 PM, all day Tuesdays. On the plus side they have the poppy-seed bun and condiment mix down pat, although they use normal sweet relish and not the garish bright green piccalilli stuff normally found. On the downside, the core of the sandwich is this long pinkish plug of mystery meat, which quite frankly (pun intended) is pretty gross. Switching to Vienna pure beef dogs, especially if deep-fried like the Maxwell Street polish is, would be a night/day difference in quality, although it would prevent the cheap sales. I don't know how that would impact the store's business model.

The table I sat at needed a thorough cleaning, but they apparently don't attend to the tables during busy times. I had to take napkins and water from the bev dispenser to clean the table I sat at.

Bottom line -- three stars. The chicken sandwich I tried was good but some things needs work: The fries are meh; Hot sauce and mayo would be welcome as available condiments; The Chicago-style dog needs re-inventing; and Lysol wipes or equivalent should be provided for diners to sanitize...

First of all I’d like to say LOL at the comment that’s listed from a month back about about the tv not being changed...really? That’s something we unfortunately see on the news Every. Single. Day. (Seems like you really just wanted to leave a bad review, despite what you say.)

Anyway! Today I catered from Dogfather, following my husband’s rave review to me about the food, since they have it at Hobby Lobby annually. It was our daughter’s first birthday, and though she may not remember it, we wanted to make it special...

And special it was. From the time I put the order through, through the many emails that followed, it was absolutely delightful to have not only great food, but awesome customer service. The owner, Tony, actually hand delivered the food, set it up, and talked with us as if we were old friends! (Seriously, how’d he know my dad was a biker? Very awesome, and something I’m sure he will remember too.)

I will gladly cater again and again from The Dogfather over and over for all our catering needs! Thank you so so much for the care and detail provided to a first timer at catering! I will gladly do nothing but rave about this place!

Oh-and the Italian Beef is the most out of this world beef I’ve ever had! The Chicken Marsala is amazing too!!

Thank you Tony and staff for make my family and my husband’s family filled...